Thanks for your support, everybody. I needed it a lot. I''m encouraging everyone to keep posting up suggestions/comments to me. I really appreciate everyone''s reassurance. And answering Despotismo, I totally agree, 2d is far superior.

Woa, I thought I was the only alien who liked 2d!


Despotismo AKA Javier Otaegui
Sabarasa Entertainment - www.sabarasa.com.ar
Creators of "Malvinas 2032"
Seeking publishers

Ghowland:

According neurology , human brain is a mix of genetics and experience. Younger you are, more flexible are the brain structure. (note it doesnt mean you learn faster)

But like you said, every human is smart. And maybe this "default" cognitive ability develloped with the appropriate training is sufficient to make you successful in a lot of tasks.
(game programming included)

But sometimes, training is not sufficient. The hill is too steep. You need more, you need genius .

I know I''ll never be an Einstein or a Feynmann no matter how hard I try. (I''m doing physics, they are my role model =) )

In game programming, everyone want to be like Mike,err, like John Carmack. It seems they dont realize he was a prodigy with a MONSTER mind!
(those guys need a serious reality check)

Why dont they want to be like themselves? Of course, it''s a good thing to have goal in his life! It what makes you get up out of the bed and work hard, but some goals are impossible to reach.
If you take them too seriously it can be destructive...

lcf

Math and physics are the foundations of game programming. Graphics are heavily math oriented. Controlling your game world is heavily math and physics oriented. Take all your math and physics classes very seriously. Take algebra, geometry, trig, and calc classes as soon as you can. I had the luxury of actually taking calculus my Senior year in High School. Something I thought wasn''t all that unusual until I went to College and found 90% of the students didn''t even have the opportunity to take it in High School. Take as many math and physics related classes as you can and MAKE those classes worthwhile. Take all those ''realistic wannabe'' physics problems you always get as homework and write a program to solve them. Once you have a solid understand of advanced mathematics and physics, the next step is understanding how to write code using them.

i always wanted to work in the game industry later on (well, actually i still do) and tried to learn as much as possible (okay, i still do)
from what i have gathered the most important things are

- do not commence projects that are simply too big for you. you will fail and loose motivation fast
- buy the books you need. it''s worth the money.
- try to write everything on YOUR OWN and don''t simply copy from work of other ppl or reference stuff.

well, that''s true for me, dunno if you will agree

anyway, how big are chances to actually get a job at a games programmer? aren''t there already too many of those?

I would rather be the first Marc Hanson. Maybe some day if I become famous, you guys will remember this post. If not, hehe I guess you won''t but it sure was fun to post it anyway.

By the way. I have just really begun programming a year ago. I would say the key is trying not to do too much at once. If you are having trouble with Graphics, don''t try to do a game. Instead, do some simple graphics "demo" programs, that do ONE thing. Like a program that loads a bitmap, and texture maps it to a single square polygon on the screen. Or something like that. Once you figure out how to do something the easiest way possible, one time, you can try to figure out how to do it the more efficient way. Then you can figure out how to do it multiple times, etc... THEN you can figure out how to combine it with something else. Its a slow process, but I''m convinced that this is the best way to learn. Its better to go slow, but actually KNOW everything you have done, and be able to reproduce it, than blow through a bunch of material in a book, say, and be able to do 10% of it again, but have to re-read the book to re-do the other 90%.

Once again, I''m not a pro, but I''m getting better, and fast, and I hope to be someday soon.

-Marc

cause i''m good enough, i''m smart enough, and dog garrnit people like me. heh

Wow, let me just say how encouraging it is to see a thread like this on the GD board! Sometimes I come here and all the posts seem a bit snappish, even when the authors are trying to be helpful. And when they''re not trying to be helpful... then it''s downright unpleasant.
Anayway, just wanted to say how nice it was to see so much friendly support. Cheers, all.

I just wanted to ask why the only people who are considered to be geniuses are those who excel in mathematics? How about naming some philosophers, composers, or writers for once? I just get sick of hearing Einstein''s name pop up all the time. This is just a little rant, but I''m still curious.

Anon: actually, I rarely use genius for mathematics, usually I refer to writers and musicians as geniuses.. keep in mind this is coming from a genius, and a humble one at that

theRaskell: there were that many people at your college that hadn''t taken calc in high school? that''s really unexpected, most of the people that I know had one year of it, altho I started teaching it to myself in 7th grade and had only two "official" years of it at a local university while I was in high school